Bruins finish strong in blanking of Senators

BOSTON ­— It wasn’t as easy or inevitable as the final score makes it seem.

Well, unless you’re talking about the Bruins’ line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Reilly Smith.

That trio, the only unit with a decent scoring chance in Friday night’s scoreless first period, helped the B’s put away a 5-0 win over the Ottawa Senators with three tallies in the third period.

Smith scored twice, his 13th and 14th of the season, to take the team lead in that category. Bergeron picked up a pair of assists and Marchand contributed a goal and an assist, the goal coming while the B’s were shorthanded in the game’s final minute.

On a roll

The Bruins, who visit the Senators tonight to conclude a home-and-home series, won their eighth straight at TD Garden, and extended their points streak at home to 15 games (13-0-2). Tuukka Rask earned a 33-save shutout, giving him two over a four-game win streak.

On the down side, defenseman Dennis Seidenberg won’t be in the lineup. He limped off the ice with about five minutes to play, after getting tangled up with Senators forward Cory Conacher behind the Bruins’ net.

“We were getting tons of chances in the first, and mainly in the second, and nothing was really going in,” said Smith, who is second on the team with 30 points. “You’ve got to stay positive. If it’s not going in, it’s just a matter of time.”

The Marchand-Bergeron-Smith line wasn’t the only group that needed time to get untracked.

Marchand was in on the Bruins’ only good opportunities of the scoreless first period, in which the B’s were outshot 15-5.

About a minute after serving a high-sticking penalty, Marchand collected a loose puck created by Smith’s defensive zone break-up and took off on a 2-on-1 with his linemate. Marchand’s shot from the right circle beat Robin Lehner (34 saves) to the glove side, but hit the post with 9:26 to go.

Late in the period, Marchand blocked Erik Karlsson’s wrist shot and raced Lehner to the left wing half-wall for the puck, coming out with it behind the Ottawa goalie. Marchand’s pass to Smith in the high slot was picked off, though.

The Bruins’ power play finally broke the scoreless tie 3:31 before the end of the second period, after Ottawa’s Jared Cowen accidentally caught Smith in the face with his stick.

Now a bona fide weapon (fifth-best in the NHL entering the game, converting at 22 percent), the first group was coming to the end of an ineffective shift when it finally gained the zone and set up. David Krejci, coming out of the left wing corner, hit Torey Krug at the middle of the point, and Krug drove a shot into the slot. It hit the foot of Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips as he tried to cover Milan Lucic, and the loose puck found its way to Jarome Iginla, who rifled it through Lehner. It was Iginla’s 11th goal of the season, sixth in the last nine games.

The power play, meanwhile, had connected for the third straight game, and for the fourth time in five games. Iginla’s goal was the Bruins’ fifth in just seven attempts over the three-game streak, and made them 7 for 12 over five games.

The goal also capped a much better period for the B’s than the first had been. They outshot the Sens 20-8 and carried that momentum into the third period, with Krejci scoring after just 38 seconds to make it 2-0.